


Waterfall

by apiphile



Category: Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: BDSM, Breathplay, Multi, canon fudging, deathplay, fragment to clear my head before nano, james and his death wish, maternal is not like this, their relationship is kind of non-standard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-29
Updated: 2012-10-29
Packaged: 2017-11-17 07:23:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/549052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apiphile/pseuds/apiphile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is really not enough story here to summarise. PWP.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waterfall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nny/gifts).



"James. James."

The voice confirms to him that he's dreaming. The pressure in his ears had been on the side of being underwater, but he supposes the fact that he's not wet might have been a clue. But there's something very tempting about letting himself sink anyway, down into the water that isn't there: he knows if he opens his eyes now, the world will be as blurry as if he's lying at the bottom of a pool.

"James."

He should smile, he thinks. One of those horrible ugly sardonic ones, not the charming ones he saves up for beautiful women. Beautiful, dangerous women. 

" _James_."

It occurs to him that he hasn't moved a muscle, and that if it weren't for this insistent, incessant voice he might even be able to convince himself that he's dead. It's a shame. Underwater is so peaceful, even if he's not really there, that if he could just shut out this nagging, annoyingly familiar voice, he could lie down and drown. It's not as if he's breathing: his chest is bursting with the air that isn't there.

Something pinches his face. It feels very far away, squeezing his cheeks together and puckering his lips. Now, James thinks, he should smile. Show his teeth. Grimace the grin of a dying man. 

He knows he's not dying. He knows the feeling in his chest should not be disappointment, but he'd be disgusted if it were relief.

"James, for Christ's sake."

The voice is impatient and mostly devoid of sympathy.

"Oh, loosen it," says the voice, more familiar than his mother's and about as welcome as a slap to the face, which follows almost on the heels of his thought. "He's insensible. I told you not to trust him when he says it'll be fine."

The pressure on his neck - the comforting, cradling pressure - slips away like a dream, or a hand he's not strong enough to hold onto. Air hits his lungs like a lorry: he can hear the ragged sound of his own throat, an ugly wet shudder of breath, a sound which is all "h" and nothing else. His head spins. James scrabbles for the floating place between conscious and unconscious, but it's gone, the blood draining back out of his face and his cock at once.

He opens his eyes with reluctance. The concern is immediately evident in both of their faces, behind the customary expressions: exasperation on hers, curiosity on his. Q is already winding the wide strip of leather around his hand, stealing glances at James in between that inwards-facing, distant expression he tends to wear when he's recalculating. 

James tries to force a smile, but he's breathing too hard.

"Ma'am," he acknowledges, eventually. The word is croaky, wheezing, almost emphysemic. He sounds twice his age, and twice his age at this age is sailing close to "dead".

"I think you overestimate your own strength, Bond," she says, cross in the way that someone's mother might be when she's just pulled her child out from under a bus. It's warmth. His fingers and feet are cold, his lips hurt with the return of sensation, and the heat of her worried ire massages his heart like a nurse's hands.

"Or we underestimated what he was after," Q muses, his winding complete, his thin, childlike face peering at James as if James is the Times Crossword. 

"I know what he bloody well wants, and he's not getting it," M says, staring hard at James. This time, his smile's genuine, though his chest is still heaving and his hands, behind his back, are not yet free of numbness or the plastic ties. "Did I tell you you could die, Bond?"

"No, Ma'am." He lets his eyelids hang heavy over his eyes. His eyes feel hot. 

Q lifts the rolled-up belt enquiringly to her line of sight, and without looking at him, M shakes her head. Disappointment flares in his chest again, along with the cold, dry air of the basement: James watches Q lick his lips and turn to put the belt away.

"Can you feel your hands?" she asks, in a voice which is neither angry nor the clipped impatience which traditionally masks her concern.

"No."

"We don't want you getting gangrene," M says, nodding minutely to Q.

James acknowledges this with a nod. He may feel rotten through every vein and bone in his body, but necrosis is an ugly and ignoble death. 

It is Q who comes to unzip the ties: _she_ won't touch him yet. James leans forwards on the chair in a gesture of cooperation. It has to be cooperation, the thing is bolted into concrete and he can't pick it up and hit Q with it. The thought is ludicrous anyway: the man - boy, really - is made of string and matchsticks and genius, all he'd achieve is cracking an eggshell. A long-ago lesson: we don't hit smaller boys, James. That's not how a gentleman behaves.

Q's dexterity is largely intellectual, and he fumbles a moment with the ties. From the pressure on his wrists, James knows that there are long clever fingers brushing against the calluses of his own hands, that somewhere the fingertips that can turn the world upside-down have touched the trigger-finger that's murdered God only knows how many men (and women). But he can't feel it. 

Getting a solid grip on the ties at last, Q dips like a wading bird and murmurs in James's ear: "You can't afford to waste braincells on stunts like this."

James is about to answer him - he's not sure how, yet - but Q finishes his remark with a dry kiss to the nape of his neck, and the impetus to retort is lost. He jerks his head up to catch M's eye.

She offers him the smallest possible smile.


End file.
